The present invention relates to molded polymer materials having a high resilience, a high hardness and a good durability which are useful in various types of sporting goods and as industrial materials. The invention relates in particular to molded polymer materials suitable for use as one-piece golf balls and as multi-layer solid golf ball materials, and to golf balls made with such molded polymer materials.
Many golf ball materials have been disclosed recently. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,930,150 teaches polymer mixtures in which there is formed a pseudo-crosslinked structure or a semi-interpenetrating network structure.
However, such polymer mixtures lack the performance of a high-resilience material capable of enduring use as a one-piece golf ball or a golf ball core responsible for substantially all the rebound performance of the golf ball. Therefore, when such polymer mixtures are used as golf ball materials, the resulting golf balls have a lower rebound than golf balls made with known rubber compositions for golf balls.